


Rubbing Salt In The Wound

by AgeofCipher



Series: Lance, Lance, And More Lance [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Biracial Character, Biracial Lance (Voltron), Dark! Lance, Heavily based on my own experiences, Keith is slightly mentioned, Lalidge? That too!, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Lance Almost Drowns, Lance drowns but is alive, Lance is precious but I keep doing things like this, Lance is very conflicted, M/M, More like indirectly hinted at but you could substitute for anyone, POV Second Person, Scratch that he does drown, Second Person to Third Person, Shance? Cool, Ship Lallura? Cool, The miracles of modern technology, hance? Cool, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 04:50:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8131076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgeofCipher/pseuds/AgeofCipher
Summary: Cold, wet, salt stinging your eyes and water filling your lungs as you sunk. You always knew something like this would happen, vivid scenarios brought to life by your mind in the middle of a hot summer, skin slick with sweat and tears rolling down your cheeks from your overwhelming fear of the ocean.Why had you agreed to go on this charter fishing day trip?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! So today I ended up thinking about stuff from a while ago and thought about writing a Lance fic stemming off my own experiences. I wanted to point out that yes, the charter boat is a realistic situation and on that boat I genuinely was sure I was falling off the side, but I did not. I used the "drowning experience" from a different time in a lake where shit happened. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it?

_Dark skies, boats nearly tipping on the waves, people cheering and catching fish while you sat there, clunky boots several sizes too big on your feet and a large sweater dwarfing you. You caught a fish earlier, horrified when the fish bled all over your hands and boots, some blood staining the sweater and making it stink of fish flesh. As the waves rose, you couldn't take being pressed against everyone on the side of the boat, feeling like one misplaced shove would knock you off the boat. You retreated to the other side of the charter, sitting on the bench and propping yourself up between the railing and the wall. Dark waves sloshed along, tilting the boat dangerously and fear was paralyzing you._

 

_The seafoam splashed up and soaked you, and the boat lurched again. The water caused your footing to slip, and as the boat tilted you was thrown off, catching eye with your mother as you did so, watching her rush to the railing and yell something as you disappeared into the churning waves._

 

_It was dark, freezing and it felt as if everything weighed you down. Your limbs went numb and your lungs were burning from keeping yourself from breathing, but you let it go and nearly screamed when salt water filled your lungs, burning you from the inside out. You realized you were dying, drowning, exposed to your deepest fear. The cold grip of the ocean was tight around you, death lurking and ready to claim you as you continued to sink, struggling to even stay conscious as pain overrides your system._

 

_All you could think about was small things, things like how you would never get to explore space or fulfill any of your dreams. You'd wasted 14 years of your life, sad and lonely and scared, existing but not quite, to die alone and freezing, a painful death that you'd deserved._

 

_And so you faded, not around, or alive, really, when you were pulled back up to the boat, a stroke of luck to be caught in the net._

 

Years later Lance still woke up drenched in sweat, throat dry and scratchy, bones chilled from the ocean. Lance had always hated the ocean, hated swimming, hated the unknown aspect of it, hated the fact one could get sick so easily from water. A near death experience at 14 years old had left him with a bitter passion, obsessed with the ocean even as it killed him. Lance had died, been pronounced dead and then alive, moments later, as his mother cried in the arms of her fiancé, so sure her little boy was dead.

 

Dying, or coming back to life, really, had changed Lance more than he wanted to admit. Sure, he still relished in the thought of knowing he could die at any moment, to end this suffering of existence, but Lance worked hard to make sure he was leaving a legacy to be heard of for generations to come, good or bad didn't bother him. Becoming a paladin of Voltron had certainly shaped his life, as being a simple fighter pilot, a war hero, wouldn't have gotten Lance far on his own.

 

Now, he was determined to be the True blue paladin, to be the paladin that came to mind first when Voltron was brought up, whether he was the saint or the devil. Lance cared for his friends, the other paladins, the Alteans, but that fact was almost blindsided by the need to be known, to be talked of and recognized as _the Lance_ . Not Lance, a fighter pilot just barely good enough to be in the program, but _Lance_ , the blue paladin, the paladin everyone thought of first when Voltron was talked about, no matter who was a paladin now.

 

Lance had clawed his way to the top, from being the bastard son of a con-artist Puerto Rican man and disowned German woman to a fighter pilot to one of the Defenders of the Universe, and he was hell-bent on making sure nothing stood in his way, including feelings one could call 'love’ towards one of the other paladins. Even though this was what Lance wanted, what every fibre of his being told him, no, screamed at him to do, he still hesitated. Lance genuinely wanted his friends, to support them, but being at war with himself was wearing him down.

 

It was like the ocean, trying to hold his breath and eventually caving in, suffocating as he relished in his last moments.

  
_Salt water always left a sickeningly sweet taste in Lance's mouth..._


End file.
